Webinar Link

Meeting No: 2517 111 2149
Password: trade

Certificate of Participants

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ABSTRACT

Strengthening regional trade integration is vital for sustaining economic growth, resilience, and inclusive development across Asia. Despite progress in trade liberalization, barriers such as inadequate infrastructure, limited digital connectivity, and regulatory fragmentation continue to hinder seamless cross-border trade and integration into regional value chains. In this webinar, panelists will deliberate on key challenges, emerging opportunities, and practical strategies to enhance regional trade cooperation and connectivity.

About the Panel

Session Chair: Prof. C. Veeramani

Prof. C. Veeramani leads the Centre for Development Studies (CDS) in Thiruvananthapuram as Director and RBI Chair Professor. Before this, he held professorships at IGIDR Mumbai and faculty positions at ICRIER Delhi and IIT Bombay. He also served as a Visiting Fellow at The Australian National University's Crawford School.

Prof. Veeramani’s research focuses on critical areas impacting India's economic landscape, including global value chains, trade patterns and policy, foreign direct investment, productivity and labour market outcomes. His research underpins a chapter titled 'Creating Jobs and Growth by Specializing in Exports in Network Products' of the Economic Survey 2019-20: Volume 1 (Indian Ministry of Finance, 2020). This chapter's focus on network product exports as a driver for job creation has fueled national conversations about harnessing global value chains.

Holding a PhD and Master of Philosophy in Economics (JNU, New Delhi), Veeramani’s doctoral dissertation won the EXIM Bank research award in 2003. He holds editorial responsibility as Joint Managing Editor of the Journal of Quantitative Economics. He also contributes his expertise on key committees, including the RBI's External Commercial Borrowings Committee and the India EXIM Bank's Export Leading Index review panel.

Speaker: Prof Heiwai Tang

Prof. Heiwai Tang is Director of the Asia Global Institute, Victor and William Fung Professor in Economics, Associate Vice-President (Global) and Associate Dean (External Relations) of the Business School at the University of Hong Kong (HKU). Prior to joining HKU, he was tenured Associate Professor of International Economics at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University. He is also affiliated with the Center of Economic Studies and Ifo Institute (CESIfo, Germany), the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (Germany) and the Globalization and Economic Policy Center (UK) as a research fellow. He has been a consultant to the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation, the United Nations, and the Asian Development Bank; and held visiting positions at the IMF, Stanford, MIT, and Harvard. He is currently Managing Editor of Pacific Economic Review, and previously served as Associate Editor of the Journal of International Economics, the Journal of Comparative Economics and the China Economic Review.

Prof. Heiwai holds a PhD in economics from MIT and a Bachelor of Science in mathematics from UCLA. His research interests span a wide range of theoretical and empirical topics in international trade, with a specific focus on production networks, global value chains, and China. His research has been published in leading journals in economics, including American Economic Review and Journal of International Economics.